Hundreds of thousands of passenger’s plans are set to be left up in the air after pilots working for German airline Lufthansa started a three-day strike on Wednesday after failing to agree on a retirement deal with the company.

Europe’s second-largest airline has canceled 3,800 flights
between April 2 and 4 after Vereiningung Cockpit, the union
representing the majority of the company’s 5,400 pilots decided
to take industrial action over plans to scrap an early retirement
deal.

"This is a massive attack on our social rights", Markus
Wahl, board member of pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) told
Reuters at Frankfurt airport. "We have to send out a clear
message".

Lufthansa are not looking to waste any time as they look to try
and get operations back to normal as soon as possible and want to
get back to the negotiation table as soon as possible.

“Our wish ... is that we start talking again as soon as
possible, even during the strike, because I think that we can
find a good solution,” Lufthansa spokeswoman Barbara
Schaedler told Reuters TV on Wednesday.

Due to the walkout, the airline will only be able to operate 500
flights over the three-day period and it will also affect the
company’s sister airline Germanwings, as well as cargo flights.
Lufthansa admits that the planned action will cost them tens of
millions of euro, with analysts quoting the figure between 30 and
50 million euro.

“A large amount of damage has been done just by the
announcement of the strike, because passengers have already
changed their bookings and cargo customers have switched to other
airlines to transport their goods”, Lufthansa said in a
statement.

The pilots union has failed to rule out further strikes, though
they have promised there will be no disruption to the Easter
holiday period, which starts on April 14.

German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has called on both
parties to try and find a quick solution to the problem.

“Every day of strikes limits the mobility of hundreds of
thousands of people,” he was quoted as saying in the German
tabloid Bild.

Air Canada has warned that its Lufthansa-operated flights
scheduled between April 2-4 are subject to cancellation. Tickets
booked on Lufthansa flights, including “codeshare” flights
ranging from AC9000 to AC9719, may be affected by the disruption,
the company said in a statement. Clients most likely to be
affected are those traveling on connecting flights going through
Frankfurt and Munich. The company added that it has begun
rebooking flights to other airlines, and is allowing customers to
delay travel plans up until September 30.

This is not the first time that pilots from Lufthansa have
announced a walkout. In 2010, they called a four-day stoppage
over cost cuts. Although the pilots returned to work after a day,
2,000 flights were canceled and the airline lost 48 million euro
in profits.

Last month Germany’s largest airline canceled 600 flights due to
a strike by public-sector workers around the nation’s airports.